Coeur d’Alene Western-Art Sale Totals $9 Million

The annual Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, held in Reno, Nevada in late July, realized $9.1 million, compared with $11.7 million last year.

NEW YORK The annual Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, held in Reno, Nevada in late July, realized $9.1 million, compared with $11.7million last year. Although organizers of the sale of Western art said the mood was one of “caution and selectivity,” they added that “the economy did not dampen the enthusiasm of over 650 bidders.”

Among the top selling lots, Kachina Painter, 1917, an oil painting by Eanger Irving Couse (1866–1936) depicting a Native American painting a Kachina figure on a wall, sold for $753,000, missing the $800,000/1.2million estimate.

Joseph–Nez Perce, 1899, a small portrait of Chief Joseph by Edgar Paxon (1852–1919), soared to a record price of $163,800 (estimate: $80,000/120,000). Gerard Curtis Delano’s oil painting In Bonnet and Paint, brought the second-highest price ever for the artist, selling for $438,750 on an estimate of $300,000/500,000.

Twilight, a fresh-to-the-market winter scene of Twinning Canyon by Russian expatriate artist Nicolai Fechin, sold for $245,700 on an estimate of $200,000/300,000, and a bronze sculpture by Henry Merwin Shrady, Bull Moose, 1900, sold for $87,750, more than three times the estimate of $15,000/25,000.

Alaskan artist Sydney Laurence’s oil painting Mt. McKinley brought $70,200 on an estimate of $60,000/90,000, while three smaller oils by the artist exceeded their high estimates: Fishing Vessel at Sea, which sold for $15,210 against an estimate of $7,000/10,000; Cache, which sold for $35,100 against an estimate of $15,000/25,000; and Early Morning, Juneau Alaska, which sold for $26,330 to the Juneau Museum of Art against an estimate of $15,000/25,000. The Nevada Museum of Art acquired Trail Drive, 1950, a painting by Dale Nichols (1904–95), for $40,950 against an estimate of $25,000/35,000.